


Christmas Lights And Nicotine

by rustedcrimson



Category: The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-25
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2018-03-25 15:41:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3815899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rustedcrimson/pseuds/rustedcrimson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Basil brings home a live Christmas tree and guilts Henry into not smoking around it. (For a bit.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Christmas Lights And Nicotine

“Basil, it’s only just turned to December,” Henry said, watching his friend string up tangled Christmas lights in their dorm.  
“It’s already December!” Basil said excitedly, clasping his hands together joyously as he hopped down off the step ladder.  
“I’ve never understood your excitement for such overhyped holidays,” Henry said as he stood up, grabbing a strand of mistletoe from the pile on the table, twirling it between his fingers. “Though, I suppose there are upsides.”   
“Harry put that back,”Basil protested, “I need it for my wreath!”  
“Oh, one piece won’t matter,” he said, leaning over for a kiss.  
“Henry I don’t have time for that,” he started, pushing the man away, “I’ve got so many decorations to put up,” he began sorting through another box. “Go out with your friends or something if you’re bored.”  
“But I’m bored of them!” he exclaimed, sighing as he slumped onto the couch, “Can’t you decorate later?”  
“I could.” Basil paused, holding up a glass Christmas bulb to see the colors fade together in the light. “But I want to decorate now.”   
Henry sighed irritably and leaned back on the couch, lighting a cigarette.   
“Harry!” Basil began crossly. “You mustn’t do that in here now! I’ve brought a live tree in, I can’t have you killing it!”  
“But it’s too cold to smoke outside!”  
“Then just stop for a month! My God Henry, you’ll be fine I’m sure.”  
“But Basil!”  
“But Henry!” he said mockingly, stringing a garland of popcorn and cranberries, holding the needle in his mouth.   
Henry did not put the cigarette out, and instead took a long drag, looking Basil straight in the eyes.  
“Harry, come on, listen to me just this once.”  
“I listen to nobody but myself,” he declared defiantly, crossing his legs. “And often I do not even do that.”  
“You are insufferable,” Basil sighed, returning to his boxes.  
“I should hope so- it allows me to never be bound to a person for too long. For when I no longer wish to spend time with them, they have nearly always had quite enough of me as well.”  
“You could just be nice,” Basil suggested. “Then you would not get bored of people.”  
“Pretending to be something I’m not would not change who I am,” he started, tilting his head back to look at the paper snowflakes Basil had hung from the ceiling. “And besides,” he said smugly, “I very much enjoy being who I am.”  
“Henry, please just put out the damn cigarette.”  
“Why don’t you just take it away?”  
“You’ll only light another one,” Basil replied. “I can’t make you do anything, not really.”  
Henry leaned forwards, putting his elbows on the arm of the couch. “You like me because you cannot change me.”  
“I like you because I know that you are really quite good.”  
“I am not!”  
“It’s a compliment, Harry. I thought you adored such things,” Basil said dryly.  
“It does not feel like a compliment,” Henry replied, pouting.  
“I wish I could understand what pleases you so I would know what to say.”  
“You know very well what I want you to say!” Henry began, tapping ashes onto the floor as Basil glared at him. “You are just too ‘kind’ to say it.”  
“What do you mean, ‘kind’?” Basil narrowed his eyes and glanced up at his friend.  
“Why, if you were truly kind you would say what I wanted!”  
“To say what you want me to would be terribly rude!”  
Henry laid down on the couch, swinging his legs up over the top of it and looking over at Basil. “But it would make me happy.”  
“Perhaps I do not want you to be happy,” Basil said, focusing on his garland.  
Henry laughed. “You do too want me to be happy.”  
“Maybe not.”  
“If I am happy I will be quiet, and you most certainly like when I am quiet.”  
“You are never quiet, Harry, least of all when you are happy. Then all you do is talk until you are euphoric.”  
“I cannot help that I like to talk.”  
“Just because you like it does not mean you need to do it all the time.”  
“That is exactly what it means!”  
Basil watched him take another long drag and close his eyes as he exhaled.  
“Don’t you want a Christmas tree?”  
“I do not particularly care.”  
Basil looked at him pleadingly. “Oh Henry, just do this one thing for me, please?”  
“Oh, being polite will get you nothing from me.”  
Basil sighed, picking out ornaments for the tree.  
Henry put out his cigarette, and Basil looked over at him. “I was done, that’s all,” he insisted, puffing his chest out as he walked over and knelt down beside Basil. “These ornaments are horrid.”  
“I made these!”  
“Oh I am very sorry, you have lost all your talent I see.”  
“I was a child,” he said, jabbing Henry in the ribcage as he picked up a popsicle stick angel covered in glitter.  
“Thank God, I was afraid I would be forced to find some new artist friend.” He leaned back on his palms. “It is so very hard to find true artists nowadays, they only ever care about their art.” He paused. “A real artist of course, cares only about his reputation.”  
“I do not agree with you, Harry,” Basil said absentmindedly, brushing glitter off his hands.  
“I am glad you do not. I should feel quite certain I was wrong if anyone ever agreed with me.”  
“I wonder what you would be like if you ever acted like the person I know you to be.”  
“Miserable I am sure. When a man acts like himself in public, it is because he is too dull to imagine himself better than he is.”  
“You think me to be dull then?”  
“Oh, dreadfully so! Basil, you are quite the dullest person I have ever met.”  
“That is not very nice Henry.” Basil frowned.   
“I do not exist to be nice, I exist to be entertaining.” He went to strike a match, but looked at Basil, and then at the tree and sighed, putting the box back in his pocket.   
“You mustn’t reduce yourself to entertainment, you are human.”  
“And what is a person worth if they are not interesting?”  
“There is no use assigning worth to people.”   
They talked for another hour or so, and Henry began to fidget nervously, running his fingers through his hair and anxiously tapping his foot on the ground.  
Basil watched him and exclaimed in annoyance, “It’s been hardly two hours!”  
“I am not used to denying myself the things I enjoy,” he muttered, biting the inside of his cheek.  
“You’ll be fine.”  
“Mmh.” Henry clenched his jaw.  
Basil scooted closer to him and gently ran his fingers along the man’s neck, his other arm wrapped around his torso.  
Henry tilted his head back, and then rested it on Basil’s shoulder. Basil stroked the man’s hair, his other hand resting on Henry’s hip.   
Henry rolled over and pushed Basil beneath him, kissing him roughly, and undoing the top buttons on his shirt, tongue flitting across the newly exposed skin. He hoped that perhaps he could distract himself from a withheld pleasure by indulging in another one. Basil draped his arms across Henry’s neck, writhing happily beneath him.   
Henry stopped suddenly, and sat up leaning back on his palms. “Goddamnit Basil! I need to smoke!”  
Basil sighed heavily, as though he had expected as much. “Just go in the bedroom and close the door so at least the tree will not be so terribly endangered.”  
Henry leapt to his feet and slammed the bedroom door behind him, sliding down against it as he lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, his tense body finally relaxing.  
Basil opened the door so that Henry fell down onto his back. He just laid there eyes closed as he held the cigarette between his fingers.  
“Feel better?”  
He stretched out, sighing contentedly, “Much.”   
“You haven’t got an ounce of self control.”  
“Why control myself when I can let my desires do that?” he murmured, taking another long drag as Basil sat down beside him.   
“You will not always be able to do whatever you want whenever you want to do it.”  
“And why not?”   
Basil laughed. “Because the world does not work that way!”  
“Then I shall change it so that it does.”  
“Most people’s reasons for wanting to change the world are not so selfish.”  
“Which is why they never manage to change it. The only thing a man ought to do is that which he himself desires, or he will quickly lose interest. We are all terribly egotistical.”  
“You are wrong, Harry. I believe people are rather altruistic by nature.”  
“Oh Basil, do you really think so?” Henry asked teasingly, “Even me?”  
“You know far too much about philanthropy to not be involved. I have seen you write checks out to charities.”  
“For my reputation, of course.”  
“You never tell anyone though.”  
Henry grinned, “Also for my reputation!”  
“You are far better than you would admit.”  
“Am I? How unfortunate.”  
“Someday you will meet someone who does not see beneath your act,” Basil informed him.  
“I can only dream of such a thing,” Henry smirked, resting his hands across his chest and closing his eyes.   
“Oh Harry, surely you do not want people to think you are horrid?”  
“I want people to think I am interesting.” He paused, opening his eyes and motioning with his hands. “It is not interesting to be kind, it is commonplace and rather boring. Sin, Basil, sin is interesting. Amorality, debauchery- we all want what is forbidden. So to make my mere company a sin, is to be desirable.”  
“You put too much thought into things people will not understand.”  
“Oh, it would not work if they understood it of course! The very basis of using psychology against those one talks with is that they mustn’t be aware of it!”  
“The way you toy with people is horrid! How cruel you are to them!”  
“But Basil, it is so very fun!” He laughed. “To elicit reactions, to manipulate their very actions- it is power at its finest! It feels absolutely wonderful!”  
“It is heartless!”  
“Basil my dear, I do not know what you expect from me, really.”  
Basil sighed. “Perhaps I expect more of you than you are.”  
“It matters little,” he began, tossing his cigarette aside and lighting a new one. “I am all I wish to be.”  
“You are too prideful, Harry.”   
“There is no such thing.”  
“Your ego needs its own dorm room,” Basil said dryly.  
Henry grinned, “A whole wing of rooms-” he said, gesturing dramatically with his hand.   
“Oh you are even proud of your narcissism, I just don’t know what to do with you!”  
“Appreciate me for what I am and stop wishing I was something else,” Henry began. “I am perfect, after all.”  
“God himself envies your arrogance.”  
“I am sure he envies all of me.”  
“He made you!”  
“He did not make me! I have made myself!”  
“Harry!” Basil paused, and then sighed. “I worry for you.”  
“Why so?”  
“Oh, I wonder, and I worry, will you go to heaven?”  
“I should hope not!” Henry exclaimed.  
“Harry!”  
“I would not be allowed to be myself if I went to heaven, no, I would much rather go to hell!”  
“You mustn’t say such things!”  
“Why do you care?”  
“When I die, oh, who will I talk with for the rest of eternity!”  
Henry laughed, “You would listen to me for an eternity?”  
“Rather you than some other person I care for only out of boredom!”  
“Oh, I would listen to myself for an eternity as well. But Basil, God would never let me talk were I to go to heaven,” he laughed, “Yes, he would take my voice away, I am sure of it.”  
Basil rested his head on the man’s chest, “Do you believe in God?”  
“One must believe something exists to hate it.”  
“You hate God?”   
“The world is horrid Basil, how can he let it be so?”  
“See- I knew you cared, I knew you did.”  
“I don’t,” Henry said, pursing his lips together. “Sometimes I talk until I say things I don’t mean.”  
“No Harry, you talk until you finally say what you do mean.”  
“I am not good.”  
“Of course you aren’t.”  
“I’m not!”


End file.
